You know, The Pixies have always been a bizarre band to me. As much as I love every album they released, I don't feel like I really "know" any of their records intimately. I've spun 'em all over and over and over, and every time, it feels like I've only listened to each one a couple of times. I know "Doolittle" the best, and I know "Bossanova" pretty well..."Trompe Le Monde" sounds like a different album every time I listen to it, and "Surfer Rosa" has so many jagged edges it's like listening my way through a maze...

But holy crap, listening to them makes me really love music, because they were so damn good at making fun, catchy, intelligent (but still kinda stoopid) pop music.

And oddly, even though they were never the smash top 40 band that maybe they should have been, just about everyone I talk to either knows a Pixies song or can recognize "Gigantic" or "Here Comes Your Man" when I play it for them. "Oh yeah...THAT song!"

But to me, every song on every album is equally classic. There's no one Pixies song that gets on my nerves or bores me to tears or sends me racing for the skip button. I pretty much love it all.

So when I went to the Aragon Ballroom tonight to check out the first of four nights of Pixies concerts (or is it five nights? it's a lot.), I was a little scared. I was scared that it might not live up to those wonderful albums I've played over and over and over during the years, and still feel like I'm just barely getting to know. I feared that the band would be bored and only doing a reunion band for the money. I feared they'd have the stage presence of stale bread. I had some serious second doubts about going through with it tonight.

Boy, was I wrong...cuz I got my ass kicked raw by some rock'n'roll tonight. YEE FREAKIN' HAW!!!

The good thing about loving every single song by the Pixies is that tonight, every single song they performed was one I wanted to hear. And they spat through dozens of them, in machine gun procession, with barely even enough time to let the audience applaud between songs. The show started with an adorable recitation of "In Heaven" from the film "Eraserhead", sung by Kim Deal, then launched into the slow version of "Wave of Mutilation", and just got faster and harder and more intense until Frank Black's voice was screaming across the venue like a bovine tasmanian devil, wrapping up with the fast version of "Wave of Mutilation", and a few more songs, then an encore that featured "Here Comes Your Man" (as if we'd let 'em out alive without them playing it) and then a chance for Joey Santiago to do things with his guitar that I thought only Thurston Moore knew how to do (or Prince, when he's laying his guitars to rest on particularly creative nights).

I've seen a lot of good shows this year, and I've seen just about every musical act that I consider to be among my absolute favorites. It's difficult to rate this show against everything I've seen this year, and I'd even go so far as to say it wasn't the best show I've seen. But I will also say this - this show ROCKED more than any show I've seen this year. The Pixies are not fucking around, and amen to that.

I'm so freakin' glad I went.

Excellent review. This has me majorly pumped to see them in about a week. I'm so glad that I finally got tickets. I'm expecting to be fully blown away too and it sounds like it's almost a guarantee now. I'm so glad they're doing this reunion. So many people that have been inspired or influenced by them didn't have a chance to experience them live. Just when they were becoming living legends, they split up. This gives all us stragglers the chance to see what it's all about.

oh! and they did cactus - at least the second time i've heard it live this year!

I'm going in NY in December, and I'm having to force the boyfriend to go. "Who?" he said...sigh.

Glad you had a s good a time as I did.

Yeah, that joey can get CRAZY. I didn't know what he was doing, but it was amazing.

Nice review anxiety. Did the audience members sang/shouted all the lyrics,moshed & pogoed like the good ol' days?I hope so..Btw, I hope any of you Pixies fans picked up the 2 disc set of old Pixies demos & reworked Pixies songs



It's just Frank Black on acoustic guitar on the old demos while the other CD was Frank Black's reinterpetations of Pixies songs he did with some muscians who are members of Pere Ubu.
[Edited 11/15/04 10:47am]

And as far as I'm concerned, Frank Black's solo albums are some of the best rock & roll albums ever made. I think he has made 5 or 6 since the Pixies broke up. And I was never even a Pixies fan. Check them out, but only if you can appreciate great song writing, great hooks and great rock & roll.

PhilG said:

I bought this while at the Electric Fetus during my trek to the Org Mpls. Invasion last month! To be honest, I'm really not crazy about the arrangements on the "reworked" disc, and the first disc didn't move me too much either, but it was at least interesting.

And hell yeah, the crowd went fucking nuts at the show Saturday night!

Very nice review Anxiety. Dont know if you read mine I posted back in late October. I saw them here in Dallas and it was definitely one of the best and most memorable concerts I've ever been to. It took my voice about 3 days to return to normal! I sure hope they put out a new album and come back thru Dallas again.

I got turned on to Pixies from my younger brother. He was working with this guy who was a hardcore fan. He car pooled with him and said every day this guy would pop out whatever cassette he had in and put in some Pixies. He'd get so irritated that this dude was insisting he listen to "the worst sounding music he'd ever heard". Then after about a month it started growing on him and he started making ME listen to it. Sounded like garbage to me too. But the same thing happened...I started digging it. Within a couple of months I had to go out and get all of their albums. They had JUST broken up so I never got to see them until this reunion tour. I went and saw Frank Black every chance I got when he'd come through Dallas. The last time I saw him he played about 5 Pixies tunes and that was great. The man is a genius songwriter. They dont get much more unique.